With startling revelations, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa rewrites the standard history of the end of World War II in the Pacific. By fully integrating the three key actors in the story - the United States, the Soviet Union, and Japan - Hasegawa for the first time puts the last months of the war into international perspective. From April 1945, when Stalin broke the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact and Harry Truman assumed the presidency, to the final Soviet military actions against Japan, Hasegawa brings to light the real reasons Japan surrendered. From Washington to Moscow to Tokyo and back again, he shows us a high-stakes diplomatic game as Truman and Stalin sought to outmaneuver each other in forcing Japan's surrender, as Stalin dangled mediation offers to Japan while secretly preparing to fight in the Pacific, as Tokyo peace advocates desperately tried to stave off a war party determined to mount a last-ditch defense, and as the Americans struggled to balance their competing interests of ending the war with Japan and preventing the Soviets from expanding into the Pacific. Authoritative and engrossing, Racing the Enemy puts the final days of World War II into a whole new light.

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'Without doubt the best-informed book in English on Japanese and Soviet manoeuvres in the summer of 1945.' -- Times Literary Supplement, August 19,2005

Synopsis

With startling revelations, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa rewrites the standard history of the end of World War II in the Pacific. By fully integrating the three key actors in the story - the United States, the Soviet Union, and Japan - Hasegawa for the first time puts the last months of the war into international perspective. From April 1945, when Stalin broke the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact and Harry Truman assumed the presidency, to the final Soviet military actions against Japan, Hasegawa brings to light the real reasons Japan surrendered. From Washington to Moscow to Tokyo and back again, he shows us a high-stakes diplomatic game as Truman and Stalin sought to outmaneuver each other in forcing Japan's surrender, as Stalin dangled mediation offers to Japan while secretly preparing to fight in the Pacific, as Tokyo peace advocates desperately tried to stave off a war party determined to mount a last-ditch defense, and as the Americans struggled to balance their competing interests of ending the war with Japan and preventing the Soviets from expanding into the Pacific. Authoritative and engrossing, Racing the Enemy puts the final days of World War II into a whole new light.

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This very interesting book stunnned me in various ways. It challenged my views of the Second World War especially over Japanand the principal reasons of Atom bombings.The official history over Japan is always the views of the victors--the US. This book iswritten by a Japanese writer with caution but bravely. It brushes aside the reasons told by the US Administration about the usageof A-bombs. The book carefully shows the inner-party struggles among the ruling elite of the Japanese Empire and clearly showsthat the Japanese Government was ready to accept surrender. The Japanese point of view depends heavily on the attitude of theSoviet Union. When Molotov summons the Japanese Ambassador in Moscow and declares war on Japan, the Japanese elite isdevastated. They count on Moscow to mediate peace overtures between Japan and the US. The stormy advance of the Red Armycan not be stopped and the Japanese do not fight against the Reds either.Among the ruling elite of the Empire the worst nightmareis a potential communist upheaval. They could do anything to avert this consequence at all costs. The changed US Administrationfrom Roosevelt to Truman clearly plays in this area. They don't want the Soviets involved in Japan proper. They can not stop theinvasion of the Red Army into China and Korea but they won't have the Soviets have a share on Japan. In a respect the droppedA-bombs are a veiled threat to Soviet Union.The Soviet Union carefully play with the former and new imperialist powers in theregion. They liberate the oppressed Chinese people from the yoke of Japanese invaders giving huge boost to Communists in Chinapaving the way for the 1949 victory. The US double dealing results in bombing of major cities with atom bombs and with Sovietentry into war, the Emperor accepts unconditional surrender. From then on, a disgusting relation develops between US and Japanlike in West Germany. The former torturers and imperialists remain where they are in the ruling elite. Like co-operation betweenCIA and former Nazis, the Japanese agents are to be used in Cold War against Communists. The country still has thousands of USsoldiers on its land. WHY?

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5.0 out of 5 starsyou will find the best case for the best answer in this superb book

22 May 2016 - Published on Amazon.com

Format: Hardcover|Verified Purchase

If you want to know the real reason that Japan surrendered to end WWII, you will find the best case for the best answer in this superb book. By August 9, 1945, virtually all of Japan's cities were in ruins because of months of bombing by the US. The US dropped its atomic bombs on August 6 and August 9. Americans have long been told that those last two attacks were the reason for Japan's surrender. There was another development that is not typically included in our history lessons, however--the entry of the Russian army into the Pacific theater on August 9 against Japanese forces in China. The Russian threat to lightly defended northern Japan caused a crisis for Japan's senior leadership and the emperor that could not be ignored if Japan was to remain intact in any acceptable form. Better to surrender to the US than to risk the loss of the northern islands of Japan to the Russians forever.

By 1945 Japan seemed well and truly beaten. Its navy and merchant fleet were on the bottom of the pacific. Its air force lacked fuel and was limited in what operations it could launch and its cities were being destroyed by Curtin LeMay's fire raids. One would have thought the unconditional surrender in 1945 unremarkable. The story was however more complex. Japan had only committed a small fragment of its army to the South East Asian and Pacific theatre. Most of its troops were in China and Manchuria. Even in 1945 it controlled a considerable empire including Malaya, Vietnam, what was to become Indonesia, Korea and a good deal of China. The Japanese Army had been transferring its army to the homeland. In addition it had some 9,000 aircraft which could be used as Kamikaze bombers. What the army hoped to do was to inflict a defeat on the American force that would invade Japan in 1945 and then obtain a favourable peace.

In August the Japanese government tried to manoeuvrer the Soviets into acting as intermediaries in a negotiated peace. The Soviets however had other intentions. Stalin wanted to grab large parts of what had been the Japanese Empire. He was keen to intervene in the war so that he could extend his empire. He however kept these aims from the Japanese till he was ready to move.

The strength of this book is that it shows that rather than the surrender of Japan resulting from one cause such as the dropping of the Atom bomb it was a combination of that and the Soviet attacks. The Soviets attacked the Japanese army in Manchuria with one and a half million men thousands of tanks and aircraft. The Japanese forces collapsed with the Soviets talking over Manchuria and North Korea.

With this attack the hope that the Japanese had of inflicting a defeat on the Americans and using the Soviets as intermediaries collapsed. While that was happening two bombs were dropped that killed 150,000 or so people. It was this that led to the decision of the Emperor to back those in his cabinet who favoured peace.

The book is one of the fullest outlines of the last days of the Japanese Empire. It also explodes a number of myths. For instance it is clear that Truman did not make a decision to drop the bomb. What he did was not to prevent the military making the decision to drop it. It would appear that he was keen to do so for the reasons of avenging Pearl Harbour and demonstrating to the Soviets the power of the bomb. Truman also had hoped that the existence of the bomb might have led to the end of the war before the Soviets could intervene. Stalin however was keen to get into the action and to grab parts of the far east. Thus it was a race to get into the war before Japanese resistance collapsed.

"Racing the Enemy" is a meticulous yet gripping reconstruction of the three-sided diplomacy surrounding the surrender of Japan in 1945. The author's basic aim is to recreate the perspectives of policymakers in Tokyo, Washington and Moscow. For the most part he is successful, as he takes the reader on a fascinating day-by-day, memo-by-memo tour of decision-making in the three capitals.

By the summer of 1945, Japan was isolated, blockaded, and in ruins. The end was near. However, America was still smarting over Pearl Harbor, and Truman was eager to defeat the Japanese quickly without Russian involvement; as a result, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were incinerated even though Washington knew that Tokyo was looking for ways to exit the war. Meanwhile, Moscow fooled Tokyo into thinking it might broker peace talks with the U.S.; in reality, Stalin was planning to betray Japan and grab territories in Manchuria and the Kuriles. Finally, military and civilian leaders in Tokyo were hopelessly divided about how to save Japan and its monarchy from destruction, even though it was clear (to the civilians, at least) that the war was lost. The upshot was lost diplomatic opportunities, atomic warfare, massacred innocents, and Soviet power grabs. The collapse of the would-be "Moscow connection" probably did more to cause the Japanese surrender than the atom bombs did. No one comes off well.

"Racing the Enemy" is clearly written and informed by the latest archival discoveries. The author has a sharp understanding of how decisions are made (or not made) in government bureaucracies. It is truly a tour de force. However, I gave the book only four stars for two reasons: First, it needed more biographic information on the principal decision-makers; unfortunately, most of them come across as names and titles, not as flesh-and-blood personalities. Second, the book needed an appendix containing the full text of documents such as the Potsdam Declaration or the Byrnes Note; the absence of these key texts is a bizarre omission in a book that depends so much on the careful reading of memos, cables, and demarches.